Hamburg Jukebox podcast

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By the time of their second Star-Club visit from 1-14 November 1962, Ringo Starr had become the group's drummer. The Beatles stayed at the Hotel Germania having the luxury of single rooms for the first time, and then stayed at the Hotel Pacific for another booking from 18-31 December 1962. Harrison said: "We came back to play the Star-Club, a big place and fantastic because it had a great sound system. This time we had a hotel. I remember it was quite a long walk from the club, at the top of the Reeperbahn going back towards the city." Portions of their final performances were taped with a portable recorder by an associate of Ted "King Size" Taylor of The Dominoes, another group playing at the club. The tapes were released on Germany's Bellaphon label in 1977 as The Beatles: Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962, and subsequently re-released in various formats and titles.

All the gangsters would come in - the local Mafia. they'd send a crate of champagne on stage, imitation German Champagne, and we had to drink it or they kill us. They'd say, "Drink, and then do "What'd I Say"

"I grew up In Hamburg, not Liverpool"
Saturday would start at three or four in the afternoon and go on until five or six in the morning.
The Germans were fabulous, because if they liked you they would send up crates of beer.

Their first gig in Hamburg was at the notorious Indra Club, frequented by rowdy drunks. After a shaky start at the club, the Beatles honed their stage presence over the course of close to 50 consecutive nights of playing. As they got better word spread and the crowds got bigger and bigger.

Finally things got out of hand and the police decide to shut down the club. That did not stop the Beatles, the simply moved to a larger venue at the Kaiserkeller. With the Beatles came the crowds.

Thinking they would get rich and famous they instead they found dirty clubs, long hours, filthy living arrangements, and swarms of easy woman. They played through the night, and slept behind a movie screen in a theatre.

The original tape had been crudely recorded on a Philips home tape recorder, by fellow musician Ted "Kingsize" Taylor, and was considered as a possible live album "cash-in" release after Beatlemania had begun. The sound quality was so poor, however, that the idea was abandoned, and the tape languished in a Liverpool music office for over a decade.

Original Beatles manager Allan Williams claimed in his autobiography, The Man who Gave The Beatles Away, that in the late 1970s he was salvaging materials from condemned buildings due to be torn down; learning of the recording, and with the office they were stored in now abandoned, he obtained permission to enter the building and recover the tape. Lingasong Records bought the rights to the tape, and invested $125,000 in a thorough remix of the recordings.

Podcast Summary

Grab your favorite Hefeweizen and give a listen !

The city of Hamburg was brilliant; a big lake, and then the dirty part. The Reeperbahn and Grosse Freiheit were the best thing we'd ever seen, clubs and neon lights everywhere and lots of restaurants and entertainment. It looked really good and the sounds coming from every club's Jukebox playing Rock 'N' Roll and the new English bands being told to Mach Show, Mach Show!

"die sündige Meile"

Now if you've lost your inheritance
And all you've left is common sense
And you're not too picky about the crowd you keep
Or the mattress where you sleep
Behind every window, behind every door
The apple is gone but there's always the core
The seeds will sprout up right through the floor
Down there in the Reeperbahn

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